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[Strategy] UPSC Civil Service Exam (Part 1 of 5): Exam Trends andChanges

1. Prologue2. Act I: Mindset of the Enemy3. Prelims GS4. Prelims Optional5. Mains: 90s Era6. General studies (mains) of 90s Era7. Optional papers: 90s era8. Literature optionals: 90era

9. The Back-breakingTM era (2010 onwards)

10. BackbreakingTM era: Prelims

11. BackbreakingTM era: Mains (General Studies)12. Adaptation

Prologue

There are lot of tips scattered in various articles, but for a new person it issometimes hard to follow what is going on here.So this is my attempt to combine and consolidate everything onto five partseries on prelims cum mains cum interview approach for General Studiesfor UPSC Civil Service Exam.If youre following this site for many months, you will find repetition of ideasand tips in this article, so apologies in advance for any boredom caused.

War on Terrorism UPSC, consists of three battles

1. Prelims (CSAT) Multi choice questions (MCQs)

2. Mains Descriptive-essay type questions

3. interview

This strategy is divided into five articles, click on the appropriate links:

Topics discussed Article link

1. In Act I, We shall try to understand the mindset of our BloodEnemy (UPSC)

Discussed inthis articleitself.

2. In Act II: The weapons required to defeat him. (Booklist, art ofNote making, How to use Yojana,Kurukshetra etc)

Click ME



3. In Act III: We shall see how to effectively use those weaponsand wage the war(Topicwise strategy for General StudiesPrelims, Mains)

Click ME

4. In Act IV: How to conquer your own brain, before conqueringUPSC (cleansing the doubts of coaching classes, workingprofessionals, Hindi Medium etc)

Click ME

5. In Act V: We shall see how to retreat from the war, if victory isnot achieved. (Career Backup plans)

Click ME

6. 6th PArt (updated on March 2013): This is latest update in thestrategy, with respect to, new modification introduced in UPSC2013.

Click ME

Act I: Mindset of the Enemy

We can classify Bollywood movies into eras- tragedy ridden 50, musical 70s and soon.

Similarly UPSC question papers too have gone through evolution.

To keep it simple, I would classify this into two phases

90s era Back breakingTM era

Timeline Everything upto 2009 2010, 2011, 2012continued

PrelimsMainareas

1. History2. Geography3. Current Affairs

1. Environment2. Science3. History/Polity

WeaponsOlder NCERTsStd.Ref BooksCompetitive Magazines

New NCERTStd.Ref BooksNewspapers

MainsMainareas

HistoryGeographyPolityDiplomacy

DiplomacyYearbookEnvironmentSci-Tech

1. Standard Reference Mostly Newspapers, your own



Weapons books2. Coaching class notes

notes.

So how was the 90s era?

Most people did not have internet or computer. Internet was prohibitivelyexpensive. Even cybercafs were hard to find. There was hardly anyinformation on internet, about how to prepare for this exam.And whether information/booklist was available was mostly jingoistic andimpractical in nature. (will be discussed in Act II List of Not recommendedBooks)Those who could afford to goto Delhi for coaching, had distinct advantageover others. Because they knew what to prepare, from where to prepare andwhat to skip. (Nowadays situation has drastically changed).

in those days, Prelims had two papers

a. General Studies (150 marks)b. Optional Subject (300 marks)

There existed a proportional representation system rule. Crudely speaking it means

Suppose 2 lakh students appeared in prelims and 20,000 had History optional.(10%)And UPSC wanted only pass 10,000 students for next stage mains exam. Inthat case, UPSC would need to reserve 1000 seats for candidates with historyoptional. (10%)

Prelims GS

By and large the structure for prelims was like following

1. There would be about 20 questions on History. You had to Mugup old NCERT+ any coaching notes regarding location of Harappa sites and other boringtrivial things.

2. There would be 30-40 questions on Geography (including places in news): soyou had to prepare old NCERTs + competitive magazines + TheHinduaccordingly.

3. About 40 questions on science: NCERT + GS manual.4. Prelims GS questions used to be current affairs heavy : Almost 40 questions

on persons/places in news, books-authors, sports, awards, science-tech etc. socompetitive magazines (chronicle wizard etc) and coaching class material oncurrent affairs compilation were precious.

5. Remaining was filled up with polity, aptitude etc questions to make a paperwith total 150 questions.

Prelims Optional



Lets consider the case of Public Administration. The topicwise breakup was prettymuch identical every year. Basically you had to mugup following books religiouslyand you would clear the prelims (even without coaching or great command overGS).

a. M.Laxmikanths book on Public Administrationb. Prasad and Prasadc. Mohit Bhattacharyad. Sharma n Sadana (or Avasthi or Fadia)

But in those years, if you lived in a small town, there was no internet and nobody totell you those books were important. So you had to join a coaching class in Delhi,just to figure out the damn booklist (or worst- fail in first attempt and learn frommistakes).

Overall, The nature of prelims questions was such that youd need to muguplot of data on solar planets, PSLV missions, metal-alloys, location ofHarappan sites, winners of lawn tennis, Shanti-Swaroop Bhatnagar awardeesand other boring things like that.Same for your optional subjects. (for Public Administration you had to mugupquotes-who said what, books and authors, timelines etc.Because of the proportional representation rule, in the preliminary exam youwere only competing with the people from your optional subject group.And thus Senior player had distinct advantage over first timers. Becauseoptionals were worth 300 mark, and he had rock solid command over factsbecause of revision.The victory rule was straight arithmetic:If Someone revised above cited Public Administration books for 15-20 times(Im not kidding) then he was riding a Tata Sumo @90 kmph.If a newguy had barely read them 5 times, so he was riding a desi Atlas bicycle(used by postmen,).Now imagine what would happen if these two clashed?Same was the situation in General studies paper.

And as I told earlier, there was no internet or awareness outside Delhi. So most ofthe small-town, self-preparation-no coaching and no relative in civil service typecandidates would fail in their first attempt, because

a. they did not have idea on what to prepare, what to skip.b. They could not memorize as much as a senior player did, because of

timelimit.

So theyd fail in first attempt, learn from their mistakes, and clear prelims in secondattempt (i.e. when they too become senior players). But then they might fail inmains exam for the same reason (lack of right direction), so theyd again rectifymistakes in third attempt and with God and goodluck willing, theyd get selected.Ofcourse there were exceptional cases, but by and large, this was the situation andhence there exists a perception in the society that

1. You cannot clear IAS exam on first trial.



2. You cannot clear IAS exam without going to Delhi for Coaching.

But that was the 90s. Things have changed now. Many toppers have defied aboverules. Cleared the UPSC on first attempt: Shah Faisal, Karthik Iyer, Neeraj Singh,Mohd.Safi to name a few.

Anyways let us continue discussion on 90s era- moving to the Mains

Mains: 90s Era

General studies (mains) of 90s Era

Questions often rephrased and repeated, so if a coaching class sir dictated theanswers for previous papers / or provided notes, then all you had to do wasreligiously mug it up and reproduce the same in your answer sheets.

History

a. 3 books of Spectrum: Modern History, Freedom fighters and Cultureb. Bipin Chandra

In those years, UPSC would ask 2 markers on freedom fighters (total 10-12 marks)every year. So you had to mupup 150+freedom fighters from Spectrums book +coaching material if any. Again, senior player had distinct advantage because hewould have gone through the same data atleast 5 times. He can easily recall freedomfighters compared to a new guy.

Indian Geography

Again questions were repeated and rephrased for exampleexplain monsoon mechanism in India and why xyz part receives lessmonsoon etc.So a coaching class sir would just need to consolidate good stuff given inSpectrum book/Majid Hussain /Dr.Khullars book and provide questionanswers for old papers. Thatd be his coaching class readymade material and you did not even need a book, just mugup those class notes, and youd get fullmarks.

Polity

1. Sometimes directly lifted statements on DD Basu, other times merelyrephrasing old question.

2. Again same as above, coaching notes would save the time and effort.

International affairs, Economy

1. You had to just mugup V******s material and whatever was dictated in theclass.

2. Statistics was also pretty easy and conventional.



3. There were clichd questions on computers every year like write a note onRAM or email.

4. Same for science-tech.5. And whatever Misc. current affairs was left, you could rely on Wizards

special book on mains current affairs + Hindu.

Optional papers: 90s era

Ive already talked about that in the Public Administration strategy article. Anywaysthe success formula was

Re-mugup the same books you used for prelims.Get some fodder material from Yojana Kurukshetra. (or Readymade notes ofH******** S**** etc.) and use it elaborate or spice up the answers with socalled case studies.Questions were static, direct from the SRBs, repeated, rephrased. coaching sirwould dictate the answers, Class notes would save the day.Similar things for History, geography, psychology etc.

Literature optionals: 90s era

In the GS and Public Administration, UPSC atleast showed the decency torephrase the question while repeating it next year.but for literature was so totally clichd, even Saas Bahu serials look genuine.If you just studied the last 10 years paper, you could set your own guess-paperfor the fourth year and upscs actual paper would 90% similar to your guesspaper!For Pali or Maithali litt. All you had to do was join a coaching class or getsome Arts professor to dictate you the answers of last 10 years papers. Thatsall, mug it up and youd get more that 300/600 marks (+ scaling systemfavored litt.optionals)

In short, first timer/no-coaching type player had almost 0% chance of gettingdecent marks in mains.

And among the senior players, if Senior Player A and Senior player B. Both hadrevised notes for 20 times. Who would be successful?

Well, questions like I said rephrased repeated every year. Mains Questions are oftwo types: analytical or direct.

1. For analytical questions (Critically analyse Indias policy towardsAfghanistan), you had ready-made notes dictated by coaching class sir, youjust needed to recall and write the points. And Suppose Mr.A solely relied onthat note while Mr.B upgraded his note further with fodder material fromlibrary book or retired professor or newspapers, then Mr.B would get moremarks. Therefore quality of notes =important.

2. For direct questions (like powers of the Pres of India or explain the budgetmaking process).in that case whoever could write more points (Mr.A or B)



would get more marks. Therefore memorization skill=important.

The Back-breakingTM era (2010 onwards)

So far we saw that in 90s era, A small town candidate without coaching or tipsfrom seniors/toppers/IAS relatives, could rarely succeed.And By small town I mean every place except Delhi. (Same way for IITentrance exam, everyplace except Kota, Rajsthan, is a small town.)Anyways, suddenly UPSC wakes up and realizes the problems faced by firsttimers and small towners.So UPSC starts taking certain reformative measures in the exam process toprevent coaching classes and senior players for gaining much advantage.

This is phenomenon is referred as BackbreakingTM move of UPSC.The exams conducted in 2010, 2011, and 2012 are examples of that move.Now lets try to understand what was changed during this era?

BackbreakingTM era: Prelims

1. UPSC removed Optional subjects were from preliminary exam (2011 andonwards) it introduced a new thing called Civil Service Aptitude Test (CSAT).It had two papers GS+Aptitude. Both papers have same marks. So there goesthe advantages associated with proportional representation, 300 marks ofoptional subject MCQ paper.

2. Even in Aptitude, from 2012 It reduced questions from conventional Maths:to prevent Engineers/IIT/MBA types from gaining advantage.

3. UPSC introduced new topics in the syllabus such as environment andbiodiversity, rights issue.

4. In GS prelims, it stopped asking trivial current affairs stuff (person/places innews, awards etc.) for example Im copy pasting certain questions from 90sera

Which of the following organization won the CSIR award for S&T innovation forrural Development, 2006?

a. CLRIb. NDDBc. IARId. NDRI

Which city has been the venue of Asian Games for maximum number of times from1951 to 2006?

a. Delhib. Tokyoc. Bangkokd. Beijing

Match the following



1. Bhanu Bharti2. Mike Pandey3. Mohd.Zahur Khyyam4. Vinda Karandikar

1. Music composer2. Poet3. Theatre director4. Wildlife film maker

To solve such questions you had to constantly follow current affairs magazines (orthe readymade current affairs notes of coaching class). But Nowadays suchquestions dont appear much in prelims exam.

5. UPSC changed the nature of questions from History and Science. Forexample here are few from 1999s paper

Q1. Match Following

1. 17752. 17803. 18244. 1838

a. 1st Anglo-Burmese war

b. 1st Anglo-Afghan war

c. 1st Anglo-Maratha war

d. 2nd Anglo-Mysore

Q2. Volcanic eruptions donot occur in

a. Baltic Seab. Black Seac. Caspian Sead. Caribbean Sea

Thankfully UPSC stopped asking such questions nowadays. So you dont have tomugup a lot of data like in the 90s.

For Prelims, Nowadays most of the questions are 4 Statement True or False (4TF)type. So youre given one term/phenomenon and 2 or 3 or 4 statements. Your task isto identify the correct statements. Ofcourse it does require memorization, but theymore aimed at checking your basic understanding of a topic rather than your mugupskills (like in above questions from the 90s) for example here are some questionsfrom 2012s paper

Q1. Mahatma Gandhi undertook fast unto death in 1932, mainly because :

a. Round table conference failed to satisfy Indian political aspirationsb. Congress and muslims league had differences of opinionc. Ramsay macdonald announced the communal awardd. None of the statements (a), (b) and (c) given above is correct in this context.

Q2. Consider these factors

1. Rotation of the earth



2. Air pressure of wind3. Density of ocean water4. Revolution of the earth

Which of the above factors influence the ocean currents?

1. 1 & 2 only2. 1, 2 & 33. 1 & 44. 2, 3 & 4

To get more idea on this, read following analysis of 2012s CSAT (preliminary)paper CLICK ME

BackbreakingTM era: Mains (General Studies)

For mains exan, UPSC stopped asking conventional direct stuff fromHistory, Geography Instead emphasis was given to public health, environment, sci-tech, yearbook and current affairs from newspapers.

To get more idea on this, read following analysis of 2012s General Studies (Mains)paper click ME

Adaptation

And while writing all ^this, I donot mean even an ounce of disrespect to any seniorplayer or his success. No one becomes senior player by his conscious choice,everyone wants to clear UPSC in first attempt- But things dont turn out that way formany, So, he is a victim of circumstances created by the (supervillain) UPSC. Andlife and society is very cruel to him, as youll see in Act IV and V.

Initially UPSC had the upper hand in this war. When UPSC significantly changed thequestion style in 2010s preliminary paper, most senior players were shocked andcaught unguarded. But UPSC cant trick them everytime. Theyre fighting for theirlife and career. In 2011, 2012 they changed their preparation strategy accordinglyand adapted to this uncertain environment. So question papers are not as shockerfor them as UPSC expects.

Similarly coaching classes have been trying to adapt. UPSC keeps an eye on all thestudy material released by prominent coaching classes of delhi, to make sure noquestions are asked from such material. So coaching classes too have came up withnew ideas, for example

1. Nowadays good stuff/ ultra-important topics are not given in their printedstudy material but mostly dictated during the lecture. (Because printedmaterial usually get pirated by Xerox centres of Delhi hahaha)

2. They intentionally released their current affairs material very late (just 15-20days before the exam) to prevent UPSC from changing the papers.



This is like a game of chess, you have to constantly keep moving your pawns andadapt to the moves made by the enemy, same way UPSC too keeps coming up with

new ideas and new back breakingTM moves every year.

In the end, competition is tough and exam is not friendly to anyside, anymore,whether youre a coaching/no-coaching/first timer/senior playeryou tooshould adapt and study hard else youll get massacred like an innocentbystander in the action movies.

This concludes Act I (Part 1 of 5). Here are the links to the Remaining articles ofUPSC strategy:

Remaining Parts of the UPSC Strategy

(Part 2 of 5): Notes, Newspapers and Books

(Part 3 of 5): General Studies for CSAT prelims and Mains

(Part 4 of 5): Time Management, Coaching etc.

(Part 5 of 5): Career Backup Plans: How to prepare for State PSC etc

URL to article: http://mrunal.org/2012/11/strategy-upsc-civil-service-exam-ias-ips-csat-general-studies-part1.html

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